Black Things and an Unfinished Romance
by InSearchOfPerfectMedia
Summary: A sort of prequel Unfortunate Events. The white faced women tell their story, in journal form. Please review after reading-
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1-

I've debated whether or not to mention my name, only because of the repeated threats on my life by members of the other side of the schism.

I've also debated whether or not to mention my nearly life-long love affair with a woman that was supposed to be completely out of my reach.

But after much consideration I've decided that I must. No one will believe me, right?

I am a white faced woman. I am nameless.

Lately, it hasn't bothered me that I'm completely unknown to the authorities. That everything anyone would want to know about me is conveniently stored in one healthy file.

But it bothers me that it _doesn't_ bother me.

It could be that I've had my head underwater for too long. I've been too distracted by my love for a woman that's so out of reach; too taken by this obsession that I can't concentrate on the other failures of my life.

It began with kissing, I remember, the wants and fears so palpable that her tongue has the power to push my head back; our hands clawing at each other's breasts, at each other's souls; I know I can see and feel the darkness of the room in so many more ways than one.

She must love me. I know she loves me.

It's just the constant doubt that's always coming up to tear at my heart, this certain guilty aura around her that glows in this darkness….

And she forces her fingers into me, and we cry out in a way we've never cried before because we can feel and remember so much when we do this; and I'm taking her hands out from inside me and watching the way her lips glisten in the light coming in from the window.

"Can he hear us?" She whispers while she turns her head towards the door; overeager.

The necklace of pearls she was wearing breaks at that moment, falling on my chest as she shifts her body to a position beside me.

"You know he hasn't,"

And we stare at each other, and at the bedroom door, lying there wondering if he could be outside listening.

I know what she wants is someone who can protect her. I know it's all she's wanted from anyone she becomes involved with- a simple kind of protection, a chivalrous sort of trust.

I suppose the thing that must be bothering me at this point is the fact that I can't be this protector, this person that has the ability to save her from anything; to cement this love in stone.

She wants a knight, a big, strong, valiant knight that'll come and sweep her off her feet and hold her every night forever.

I suspect she believes the knight's masculine arms are much more assuring than mine.

But this angry love, this vexatious sex that we so willingly share with every opportunity; it takes us in. It makes us understand that there is so much more to life than pleasing the Count and an audience; so much more than VFD and remembering lines.

I just pray that she understands this.

Because I've come to feel she's only there for me at night. And it sickens me that we must live this way; shrouded in darkness and white make-up; filling demands and interpreting code like some unending machine. It makes everything so shielded from effortless happiness I know we both want to feel.

The Troupe blames our emotions on themselves. The fact that we don't eat much of anything after burning libraries; the fact that we never get out of bed after murdering children for their family's fortune.

They think the reason that the love of my life, the one thing I feel for her being the only thing that keeps me from killing myself- is distraught because of her parent's death fifteen years ago; this, _this_ is what makes me believe that this life, this calling, isn't for me.

It's the fact that they think we're siblings.

That _this_ is the reason we hold each other after a kidnapping.

That _this_ is the reason we keep the Count from taking more money than he needs from the Snicket family account.

That we were somehow humbled from the murder of our parents, of our siblings.

But the Troupe has never known the truth.

About their own evils, their own senseless tasks, my own limitless love to a person so deeply unexpected. This, my dear Lemony, is why I must empty my every emotion onto this stark white paper. Why I don't flinch when the typewriter reaches the end of the line, rather I push it back and start over again. This is why I need to tell someone what the hell is going on.

And I lean in to kiss her, to temporarily quiet the truths I've fought so hard to expose.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2-

The lighting in the back of any theater is usually dark and resonating of all sounds. Its dark humor somehow seems to sing to me, this echo of the paper rustling in my portfolio, the lamp standing in solitude on the stage sending out a sort of encrypted beacon of shine into the last row where I'm currently sitting.

I've been thinking about Olaf and his unfortunate rise to power. About his strange life, his very existence, his sudden absolute ruling over such a diverse group of people. He's killed his way to the top.

At this realization I want so desperately to stop what I'm doing, grab the gun lying in the bottom of my bag, and shoot everyone who's _ever_ gotten in the way. I want to run to the Hotel where I grew up and be a teenager again- but sitting here, crossing and re-crossing my legs, I can only dream of my youth; when things weren't so complicated.

There aren't enough people in the world to kill to regain my innocence, to get back the things I so eagerly gave up for acting and love.

She is, somehow, pregnant.

And the only thing that bothers me is that the Count has no remorse whatsoever to what he's done to her.

I keep on trying to convince myself that what she's carrying is a child, not the spawn of Satan; but the script keeps calling for me to kiss him and all I see is the way his eyes looked when he penetrated her.

And I know he wants her to suffer. He knows how many times she's failed and regained health and failed and regained again and again and he still wants her to endure this same game that has the trick question- how many months will she last _this_ time?

"Writing again?" She's behind me, brushing the hair out of my eyes.

"When do I not?" I try to make my smile appear disarming, attempting to quell this constant worry, this constant want to protect her.

I'm noble enough to be afraid for her, but yet I'm still capable of committing such injustice in this wretched profession.

"Please don't worry about me," She reads my mind, and I'm left opening and closing my mouth trying to find something to say.

But instead, she sits, lying her head on my shoulder and reading what parts of conversation I'm documenting here; but she keeps letting her hair fall onto the paper and asking me about opening night that she missed due to "a more important acting opportunity".

"Your understudy was a fat girl with a lisp," I say blankly, staring down at her beautiful face in question.

"Well, then…"

And she places her bony fingertips on that aggravating miracle, smiling slightly every now and then for reasons so unknown to me.

"Did you not hear me?"

"It isn't my fault, Flo,"

And my codename slices the dankness of this setting, a surge of memories pouring out of my sinuses with such fluidity that all I can say is-

"I'm so worried about you,"

She casts her glance from me to this document, frowning upon the 'fluidity' bit I've just added.

"Why must you dwell on the past?"

"I can't think of anything else,"

She grabs my hand, pressing it against her abdomen with such anger that my eyes shoot up at hers.

"We need to think of our child, _not_ of our unnecessary hazing and our rather questionable theatre resume," She says quietly, smiling for a moment.

"This isn't _our_ child, Tocuna,"

And now you know her name. At least one of them; Lemony. You'll have to work for the others.

She moves her head to a comfortable place on my shoulder, flipping up the armrest.

"But you _must_ be excited,"

"Do you not know what's happened in the past?" My question hangs for awhile, but I never thought I deserved an answer.

I was being judgmental. I was acting so out of my mind due to anxiety and possible sleep deprivation that I can remember not being able to recall what had happened over the past weekend.

It sickens me that all we're referred to as are free prostitutes with intellect.

"You're being selfish, Flo,"

"My apologies,"

And she kisses me, catching my mouth slightly at an angle.

The light bulb in the lamp onstage burns out.

…………..

I remember waking up without coordination and gazing starry eyed at a screaming woman for nearly twelve hours in the middle of the night.

I suppose our love is stronger now, most likely from the squirming child I have in my arms.

She's so pitiful looking, lying in the master bedroom, her face graying. I've told the Count repeatedly to take precaution with her, and now the love of my life is lying at arm's length with death and all I get to remember her by is a skinny little baby with dark hair and dimples.

But I need desperately to say how beautiful she is. The Count's features somehow mitigated; the thing that outshines everything is pure Tocuna.

I push the door open a few inches.

"Hello?" she's whispering.

I can hear the sheets hiss as she turns in bed, her pained gasps as she sits up to face my figure in the doorway.

"It's me,"

The room smells of birth and stale air, I almost choke with it. But despite this I walk slowly inside, the child crying slightly when I place it in her arms.

"It's…nice of you to be brave enough to come in here," she says quietly.

I crawl into bed, laying her head on my chest. "I know you must be exhausted, but…I couldn't bear to let you go to sleep without seeing her,"

I can feel her words before she says them.

"It's our baby, Flo. It's _finally_ our baby,"

Tears begin to bud in her eyes, whether from pain or from emotion, I can never tell. So I simply sit, holding her for a moment, trying to think of the right thing to say.

"Fiona?" she says, looking up at me.

"Fiona," I agree, looking down almost quizzically to this baby, this daughter that feels so much like my own.

Her head hit my chest. I can remember that. It nearly made me cry out, because suddenly a firm knowledge had gripped my heart because I knew I could feel her dead weight on my body. I seriously thought she was gone. I nearly knew that her absence of breath was truly death.

"Tocuna?" I'm whispering, fearing there will be no answer.

Silence penetrates the room.

"Please," I plead to no one. "_Please_,"

"Don't call me Tocuna," She gasps, the breath catching in her throat. "I'm so tired,"

"That's okay," I kiss the top of her head, my heart and soul bursting. "It's okay,"

And I take the child from her, lying it in the cradle next to the bed.

Sitting here, typing thoughtfully, I oftentimes recall my life as a foggy dream, like this was all a stupid nightmare and I'll wake up eighteen years old again with her arms around me, the arms that are stronger than mine.

But isn't this reality?

I can't remember another time when her face was this cold. I can't remember another time when I've had to cover her with sheets, kiss her and close the curtains; all with no response.

"I really love her, you know," I can hear him whispering across the hallway. "Is she—?"

"She's fine," I'm shutting the door so she can't hear us.

"Flo? Are you sure?"

"If I know anything in this world that's true, she will _live_, Olaf,"

"I don't think you heard what I said,"

I look up in question.

"I _love_ her,"

"Look," he continues, twisting my wrist up towards his face. "I _know_ what's going on between you two. I _know_ your stupid little secrets,"

"What are you talking about?"

"If you think that I'm going to stand by and watch while you take away the only person I love, you'd better start counting the days left of your life!"

He's letting go of my arm and I feel tears beginning to well up behind my eyes, so I open the door a crack, sliding my body through the gap and into her bedroom, hoping that watching her sleep will comfort me in some way.

Things are so different now.

They say a sort of schism is occurring for VFD. I've been told that Olaf has set a revolution, some sort of awakening that's setting associates into rebellion. What could the Count possibly have in store for us?

Every day his side gets stronger, more people get killed, more libraries get burned to the ground.

He apparently already knows about my "secret relationship".

She sighs in her sleep, her eyes fluttering underneath her dark shroud of hair.

The baby whimpers. Someday, I'll take her someplace safe, where we'll finally be able to love without secrets and coverings to the truth.

We've had to be so cautious that something in my mind wants to take risks, but then I see her chest rising and falling, her vulnerable body lying so peaceful in bed. I know we have to wait.

I know we need to choose the perfect moment to let ourselves free.

So all I can do is fall into bed beside her, wanting so badly to peel apart the lies and the truths about VFD, the Count and the reason my family left me in his hands and lie the pieces in front of me, the answers so clear I can taste them; like layers of an onion.

"People will always think we're siblings," she whispers as she feels my arms wrap around her.

"Yes," I say, smiling. "But they _need_ to know,"

"They do,"

And we sleep.

Reading this, years later, I can see that sliver of hope I had kindled deep in my heart. For my life to finally be able to begin, to leave this cold disaster and work for the right side— it's my one and only dream, Lemony.

To be able to let you know that the infamous white faced women are not who they may seem.

We're as human as you are, Mr. Snicket. We're only as evil as we've been treated.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3-

I remember the first time I read the Snicket file, when I was fifteen years old. It told of past organizations and unsolved crimes, tales of arson and romantic mystery that left me in dramatic affection for weeks on end. I could recall, that morning as we woke up the day after Fiona was born, that same deep realization of fulfillment, of some sort of satisfaction that you get when retaining information like that day at the Hotel Denouement.

Of course, having a new baby isn't the same as reading a file, but hopefully, my dear Lemony, you'll understand what I mean.

We were assigned an abduction and an encoded ransom note that same day, Tocuna wearing nothing but a sheet wrapped many times around her shivering body and a pair of reading glasses as she copied the instructed style of writing.

Olaf had acted as if our conversation had never really happened, as if it had only been my own delirious imagination; but halfway through the day, I remember him telling me to watch what "sins I committed", as if his burning down another child's home that morning had been an act of total justice.

But I _do_ remember the good things about that day. The fact that Tocuna's beauty seemed radiated many times over, the fact that she couldn't keep her hands off of me for weeks after seemed to brighten our attitudes.

But despite all this dysfunctional family perfection I didn't understand Olaf's words. His actions, his projections, his scripts were unchanged, his codes and attitudes were as if he had never mentioned knowing what went on behind closed doors long after he passed out.

"You make me out to be so beautiful," She's reading over my shoulder, Fiona in her arms.

And as I remember that feeling of safety we had for such a brief time, remember how beautiful our child turned out to be, I forget where I am now.

The date, the time, the year. My story must go on, to somehow mitigate the intentions of our Troupe, to show that we're only following orders with the fear of the lives of our children.

Months passed, I acquired yet another way to read encryptions. I stayed with the Troupe, hoping that staying financially comfortable would somehow help the future of our child, hoping that attaining the compensations for my findings would set me ahead of others.

The last thing I wanted was for Fiona to turn out like either one of us.

Of course, Olaf was too caught up in writing and blue prints and escape routes, too burned out at night to care for a daughter that was biologically his.

But I liked to think of it as my own.

When would I get another chance to mother a child? Especially when it belonged to the only person I loved?

And it was so painful to see Tocuna get out of bed when he called her, her footsteps long and uncertain as she made her way to his bedroom.

I believe that was the only time I ever felt worthless.

It never mattered how much we proved our intelligence. We would never be anything more than his whores.

But the tears in her eyes when she came back to our room, the strange look we would give each other, that was what made me want to kill him .

For making things so difficult, that was what I truly wanted him to be punished for.

He could've just stuck her to his work, never using her for sex and public appearances, never rubbing her fake loyalty in my face.

He would never admit what secret he knew about us.

Whether that we were sleeping together, or that we were plotting a way to leave him, I would never find out.

"What happened?" I ask her quietly as she makes her way back to bed.

"He says she's getting in the way,"

"Who?"

"Fiona,"

And I try to gasp but it catches in my throat, and a sick comprehension begins to rise because I'm trying all possible conclusions in my head.

What you don't know you can make mean anything.

"What problem does he have with Fiona?"

All she does is shake her head, halfway collapsing into my arms, falling silent.

We awoke the following morning to an empty crib, Olaf claiming he had chosen the greater good.

I remember grasping the gun in my trembling hands, my legs trembling under me before I could press it to his head.

"Where is she?" I'm screaming; wanting so badly to wake up from this nightmare I'm always stuck in.

And Tocuna's voice, choked with tears, is trying to reason with me— "Don't hurt him, Flo!!"

"He killed our daughter!!" I'm literally pushing the gun into his throat, feeling it cracking his neck. "I'm tired of his bullshit!!"

"If you kill me," he murmurs, "you kill yourselves,"

"Listen to him!!" Tocuna's terrible screaming echoes through the walls.

"Why?!?"

"He's the leader of the other side, Flo!! There are thousands of people standing ready to avenge his death!!"

My eyes must have been large at that point; the only feeling left in my body is that of the metal pressed against my fingertips. Tocuna stares at us from across the room, giving some sort of telepathic message.

I push the gun farther into his throat.

"We're waiting," he wheezes, staring down at my finger on the trigger. "They're all waiting,"

And I see Fernald in the doorway, looking coldly at his hooks; the rest of my Troupe standing in various places and it hits me. If I kill him, I open a new world of pain. If I take his life, my life will be taken with his.

I lower the gun, tears falling silently down my cheeks. "Just tell me where she is,"

Tocuna's eyes widen at the question.

"Tell her!!!!" She shrieks for me, and she runs to him, knocking his body to the ground.

He gasps from the absence of the gun, casting his ugly eyes to mine.

Her knee in his back, she snarls, "Tell me what you did to her,"

And the Troupe just gawks. Fernald begins to smile, his hooks shining oddly as he moves his arms.

"She's not dead," Olaf says meekly, stumbling over his words.

"She's just a baby, Olaf!!" I yell, kicking him in the mouth as he lies on the floor.

He laughs awkwardly, sputtering blood onto the carpet.

"She's just a baby," he repeats in a high pitched voice. "That's all it was. Just a _baby_,"

Tocuna smashes his head on the ground. And the remaining members of the Troupe run to his body, their eyes clashing with mine, saying unintelligent remarks about my "commitment to our leader".

Fernald reaches him first, pushing past Tocuna, screaming about injustice.

"My apologies, sir," he manages to whisper, stabbing the carpet with his hooks in anger.

And I walk away, backwards, to someplace where I can write this all down.

Whether she was dead or if she was routinely orphaned, I've never been able to find out.

Writing here, now, days later, I can't think of anything more to say. Perhaps the only child Tocuna will ever have was completely wasted.

I can only think of why and how I even began this life of injustice and guilt- simply because I wanted Tocuna.

I loved her so much I was willing to abandon every other path my life could've taken.

He said he killed her because she was an obstacle, a possible person that he would lose to the other side. A possible adversary, an exposure to the truths and lies of the villainous Count Olaf and his masked acting Troupe; _this_ is what he got out of an innocent child of his own blood.

"What's going on, Flo?"

She's asking me from bed, her tear stained cheeks the only thing I can see with the light from the open window.

"Everything used to be so—_normal_," I swear I can feel her tugging the tenuous bond she's always had with him.

"Just—just let it go," I flip off the light. "Just rip it in two,"

"I can't. I just— I can't," I never believed she was admonishing _me_.

The floor was cold when I walked to his bedroom that night, the doors in the hallway moving, alive; so incredibly stifling that I could barely keep the breath in my chest. They looked like my face, indecisive yet alluring, following the countless eyes etched into the floor and ceiling.

By the time I reached the end of the hallway I was shivering.

"Flo," he's whispering, pulling the sheets back. "My dear, dear, Flo,"

And I feel the grayish sick rise in my throat before I can force a response out of my body.

"Never at all like your sister,"

"Do you seriously expect me to do this?"

He smiles his stupid smile. "Why yes, I do,"

"After all that's already happened?"

We frown at each other momentarily, eyeing our partially naked bodies.

"That's it," He's pushing me into the mattress, his hands pressing into my shoulders. "You be _normal_," he snarls, "or I'll kill you like I killed that stupid little baby!"

He almost stumbles to the adjoining bathroom, making me even more uncomfortably aware of my certain unfortunate predicament.

"Why did you do it?" I'm calling to him.

The flick of his lighter, the flame making its small, insignificant shadow on the cracked wallpaper. I can't think, my mind is flustered with this new sort of pain, this new sort of aching for someone; anyone to care about me.

Tocuna lying asleep at the end of the corridor, there's no one here to listen to my screaming.

My head begins to throb from stress and the absence of nicotine.

"I need what I need, Flo. And that…is why I need you,"

He's actually smiling at his meaningless words, his revolting teeth all I can see shining in the darkness of the bathroom.

"What are you talking about—"

"I want whatever I can have. And at the moment, I can have _you_,"

He's stifling me, the lit cigarette inches, centimeters from my cheek, a hair away from my mouth.

And I cry out, because he's stuck it against my neck.

"I _hate_ you,"

And that strange, senseless feeling, intoxicating and addicting but yet so agonizingly controlling; that feeling takes us over.

"You—bitch," He says between thrusts, addressing my dryness.

I feel like I can't breathe.

But then it's over.

A lit cigarette is being placed in my trembling fingers, an arm falling around my now bare shoulders, showing me out of bed as if I'm leaving an employment office.

"I've always known what you've wanted," He's rasping, and my hand grips the loose doorknob, wanting so badly to rip it off and fling it at his ugly face.

The problems with desire, this questioning I've found myself doing, I never understood it until that night.

My psychological dysfunction, it's only started when I fell so deeply in love.

It had taken me until that night to realize I've locked myself up and dropped the key too deep inside of me to fish it out.

"I _want_ to go to bed,"

Sometimes the story of love is beautiful. Sometimes it can make you sick.

But I'm already opening the door, Lemony. I'm already taking the much needed cigarette, already dreadfully wanting a reason to leave.

"I'll always know your secret, Flo. Nothing within your power can stop me,"

His lip is trembling, his eyes look wet. But I leave, not caring enough to console him, only wanting to wash myself of his filth.

Again, I find myself walking barefoot down the long, cold, corridor and back to my bed where a distraught mother waits for me to hold her.

I would give anything to be alone for one second of my life.

To not be faced with these devastating reasons for my own existence, these terrible things I must live with to keep myself out of poverty.

Her eyes are penetrating me.

"Do you—" The words are regurgitating from inside me in dry, separated heaves. "Do you—"

She stares, her beautiful long fingers gracing the line of her neck. "What is it, darling?"

"Do you still love me?"

Maybe I should've abandoned all hope at her hesitation. Maybe I shouldn't have stayed with the Troupe for such a pitiful reason as avenging our parents' deaths. Simply to be able to love where love shouldn't be. To choose acting as a profession for the convenient backstage places where our lascivious acts could occur.

Maybe I should've killed myself.

Maybe I should've denied my daughter's death.

Maybe I should've denied she was even my daughter.

My stomach is clenching with each thought, semen still remaining sticky and hateful inside of me.

But she speaks. "I will _always_ love you,"

"Always?" I demand from her. "Even when all else falters?"

"Till death do us part, you adorable little Catholic girl,"

And I feel as if I'm going to die.

"My neck hurts," I say.

But she's already gotten out of bed, standing before me, her face so thoughtful it looked as if she were reading me like a book.

"He's done it to me, too," She whispers. "Did he say anything about—"

But she's already choking on her own tears, her fifteen year old eyes flashing against her twenty four year old orbs of forgotten family history.

"Why did we do this, Flo?" she sobs, dabbing the burn on my neck with the tip of her finger. "What have we gotten ourselves into?"


	4. Chapter 4

These days, the world is full of people that are constantly watching us.

Constantly wanting us to crawl out from the shadows; making our somewhat alluring existence all the more entertaining.

The romance, the drama, all the things that we've been through pulled into light for the rest of the world to see. So what exactly is holding me back from writing every detail of my wretched life? What exactly is holding me back from the truth?

In this dreaded volume, I hope to reveal what brought us apart. What brought our love into question, what tested our strengths until all hope was impossibly far away.

I remember we were standing, the air polluted and white from the train's exhaust, my own lungs bursting from running and breathing this mess while still trying to scream her name.

And Tocuna, she simply stared at me. The look in her eye, a look too tired to say anything.

I remember feeling so guilty, so ashamed that my past laid itself out in long dark shadows like questionable monsters striving to remind me of the things I've fought so hard to forget. You are my only hope, Lemony. My only hope to making my name not feared but spoken with faith and reverence, a name that actually matters.

But you want me to start at the beginning, don't you?

I remember the feeling of his eyes watching us sleep, cold with jealousy behind Tocuna's glasses.

"What is it, darling?"

Her voice, almost haughty, is breaking the morning silence.

The smell I thought was a cigarette is a fire someone's started in our fireplace.

"Today is the first day of winter," She's saying, wrapping her arms around me.

The curtains rustle, the glasses and his eyes are peering at us from behind them.

"Just—just don't think about her," And her head buries itself in my chest, and, sitting here so many years later; I can still smell her beautiful hair, the way she sobbed to me, waiting for Olaf to send some sort of support.

Tears, I can still remember, left my right shoulder dampened. Her own dear sweet tears, I can remember, Lemony.

Crying over a child she should've never had to give up.

"You know I can't stop thinking about her,"

I haven't made things any better.

That morning, yet another morning in so many years of this monotonous depression, no words were spoken.

My body still becoming acquainted to such reverse shock, I couldn't think straight.

Copying ransom notes, the ink kept blurring in front of my eyes, the encryptions, the codes, they all became too difficult to read.

Olaf would leave for weeks at a time, coming home belligerently drunk, coming home with extra women he didn't need.

Coming home with your sister, Lemony.

Winter seemed to last for years on end.

And sex was never the same, simply because we both hated how our lives had turned out to be.

Because now, feeling her cool breath on my neck, her sleeping eyes fluttering under her eyelids; it feels too selfish to kiss her. Too soon to expect her love.

I don't know why I feel this way. Tocuna, I know, wasn't ever comfortable going back to him.

Or so I thought.

And my mother thought I was doing the right thing; starting my career, acting in front of thousands with a prestigious Troupe that ended up going to hell within months, all of us relying on crime and cold ardent sex to keep us alive between shows.

The typewriter is drastically pushing on my legs, gravity pulling me farther and farther down to my deepest of memories.

She was so small.

And I hate that Olaf doesn't care.

I remember pulling her softly, slowly; towards me one late night, trying to make myself feel something more than pain; but I realized that it's not only me that's struggling. It's not only me that's changing so much these days.

"Why did we do it?" Her eyes are so full of want I can't control myself.

"We wanted happiness,"

And I kiss her, filling with feelings I'm not able to feel for anyone else on this Earth. Do you know how frightening that is, Lemony? To have such obsessive, overbearing thoughts for the same person for so many endless years?

But love is ephemeral, isn't it?

I can recall getting a disturbing sort of nausea, struggling in the darkness with the clasp of her bra.

I can remember running to the bathroom, falling in the doorway, feeling like I wanted to die a million times over.

My unconscious knowledge had reared its ugly head to reality.

But she held my hair back, her long fingers coated with her peachy nail polish stroking the back of my head.

Even if it was a blackened, dyed mess of a head; full of bleeding mascara and sudden motherly instincts.

"I love you," she whispers while I empty my stomach. "You _never_ forget that,"

My body dizzy and weightless, my heart bursting with sickening thoughts; she carries it across our bedroom.

Her own shaky arms, losing their strength, they carried me.

And I've never been carried before. Never been told that I've been loved more than life and money and magisterial desire.

She gave me this.

Every day, she gave this to me, wanting nothing but my devotion in return.

She lets me collapse on the floor beside the bed, the tears flowing out of me, whispering, "I'm sorry,"

"It's gone too far, Tocuna," I kiss her softly, leaning my head against the edge of the mattress.

"No, it hasn't,"

"We're going to _die_ here if we don't get out,"

But all she does is look at me in question, as if what we do is a legitimate profession.

"We're going to die, Tocuna,"

And then the way Olaf busted the door in, screaming in a drunken rage about finger paintings and George Orwell; all I could do was think of nice things, like my mother and sunlight.

"What the _fuck_ is going on in here?"

I can't look at him. He's inside me forever now, linked to me always.

"It's Flo," Tocuna manages to say, pushing her bottom of her nightclothes over her knees. "She's not feeling well,"

He leaves, stumbling over what sounds like an empty bottle on the stairs.

"It's alright," I say. "I'm alright now,"

But we can't let go of each other.

We can't stop _caring_, like so many people in our family tree have already done.

So I passed her a sugar cube, colored the very slightest shade of green.

The room was blurring, the aching in my stomach, the pain in my throat was disappearing. The times when things were perfect, that's the only thing my mind could picture.

I kept hearing my mother playing the piano downstairs, remembered the time she met Tocuna, the time I told her of my love, how honored she was to have a white faced woman in the family.

I remembered the times when it was always summer, always sweltering hot, always perfect.

And Tocuna, she simply sat, staring at the door, holding a reasonable conversation with it about medicine.

The rest is too green to remember.

But despite this I can recall Olaf with that same sick look in his eyes, the feeling that stirs in the depths of your body when someone so briefly invades you.

I woke up the next morning without Tocuna and someone building a house inside my head.

Of course, Lemony, I believe that is all self explanatory.

Falling back into sleep, as is what happened when I do this, I can always feel his eyes when he watches me sleeping.

"You're a fucking bastard," I whisper hoarsely, keeping my eyes closed. "A fucking bastard,"

He's so close to my face I can feel his revolting breath on my neck. "And you're a goddamn lesbian bitch,"

He touches my cigarette burn with one bony finger, breathing one last smoky breath into my eyes.

"How—"

"Not to mention a liar," He says bluntly, his fingers moving down my neck until they're lying on my breast.

"I _loathe_ you, Olaf,"

"I could care less, you stupid, mindless whore!"

And he's gone, locking the door behind him.

Only then do I realize he's moved me to a different room.

Pressing my ear to the bedroom door, I can barely make out his snarl under the clinking of wine bottles. "I believe she's pregnant,"

My stomach clenches, pain shooting up my spine.

Of course, it isn't safe to leave out the front door. So moments later I've climbed out the window, my head spinning with nausea from absinthe and stress and nicotine and morning sickness.

The funny thing about this situation is that Tocuna is always so simple to find. Years ago, before we finished high school, before we were so deeply connected, we decided— the train station; the Hotel Denouement.

Always and forever. Till death do us part.

Because I've always been the pathetic Catholic girl.

The train had already arrived by the time I made my way to the station, already smoking, gurgling like an angry baby.

Another funny thing is how I could tell her location by only glancing at the aisles and aisles of people.

She sees me, senses me, staring with such disturbing intensity that my heart skips a beat.

"What are you doing here, Flo?"

"I can't let you leave," Tears falling soundlessly out of my eyes, I manage to say, "I need to tell you something. Very _desperately._"

"He sent me away," she says after awhile. "He says he thought I was a— bad _influence_— or something like that,"

We stare at each other, Tocuna rising one eyebrow indifferently.

And after silence, she steps off. And I almost faint from smoke and anxiety.

But she only looks at me, watching myself rise again, falling into her without much thought.

"Dear Lord," she whispers. "What's happened to you?"

We find a bench, looking on as the train leaves without her.

"What's going on, Tocuna?"

"Do you even know what's been going on?"

"I don't," I confess, gripping the side of the bench while the hammering in my head starts again. "I have no idea,"

"Do you know what I've went through??" She's demanding at this point, but I can't think because the people in my head are making my stomach cringe with every breath I inhale.

"I don't feel well," I breathe instead of speak.

"Oh, I'm so sorry,"

"Your sarcasm isn't helping,"

"You told me it would be an escape. All it turned out to be was another opportunity for him to take advantage of us,"

"What are you saying?"

"He knows about us now, Flo. We'll be dead within months now because of _you_."

I can't breathe; the burn on my neck is itching.

"I don't _remember_," My voice is messing with my equilibrium.

"What the hell is wrong with you?? All you ever think about is yourself. I've given you the world, the perfect profession, the perfect companion, and all you do is sit there and tell me you're _sick_,"

"I'm sorry," I say, invisible food rising in my throat.

The weight of the world is on my shoulders.

"You've just opened a whole new world of pain, Flo,"

Every time I try to speak, she cuts me off.

"As if losing my child, my _only_ daughter, wasn't enough,"

"I didn't—"

"I thought I loved you,"

The words hit me like a cold stab in my heart, photographic memories flashing in my head; myself saving her every time from the evils of the Troupe, bringing her above every chance she's had to fall below.

I'd only questioned my love for her in minor amounts before that moment.

Now my entire life was snapping in sharp stomach cramps like a demented camera.

"Tocuna,"

I'd only noticed then she'd gotten up from her seat and begun walking towards the parking lot.

"Tocuna!!" I'm screaming, not caring how much it hurts my head. "Tocuna!!"

She finally glances back, black tears staining her white cheeks.

"I think I'm pregnant,"

And I grab her hand, ripping it with force, trying so hard to make her say what she's feeling.

This form of Stoicism, this is always the tradition of the Troupe. The only emotion you show is for the character you portray.

The only things you feel are things not even concerning you.

"That's simply wonderful," She twists her hand out of mine, half-running away from me.

But I caught up with her. I can remember that, and the fact we hijacked a taxi cab.

I must've fallen unconscious, my head lying on the ripped dirty cloth of the car seat, not moving even when Tocuna drove the car through a half block of bushes.

We were apparently being "followed".

Who would want to follow a taxi cab, Lemony? Unless it carried three children and someone's bookworm sister?

We weren't important to anyone then. We were two women, one of us a taxi driver. Looking back, I see no reason for her to drive with such recklessness. The entire drive, screaming about daughters and green liquids she's ingested, it was madness. There was no reason to be so frightened.

But when I woke up to the reflection of the Hotel Denouement, I couldn't help thinking--

_We matter to someone._


	5. Chapter 5

"You make me want to kill myself,"

She opens my car door, but my vision is too blurry to see much of anything other than the blaring lights at the Hotel's front door.

"Pathetic, simply pathetic,"

"You know that isn't true, Tocuna," We meet each other's eyes for a moment. "Please, I don't want to lose it,"

"I don't know what you're talking about,"

"Yes," My vision gets sharper, then worse than it's ever been. "You _do_ know what I'm talking about,"

She'd already taken a seat about 10 yards away, leaning up against the Tree I'm sure we've all encountered at least once in our lives. You know, Lemony, the one with the endless hearts etched into its dying bark?

"When did it all go wrong, Flo?" She's calling to me. "The birth of Fiona? When did things take a turn for the worse, my dilapidated darling?"

"I really can't say," I've finally caught up with her, sitting under the ever growing branches of the Willow.

She smirks oddly, the corner of her mouth turning up just slightly. "Think I should have given her up in the first place?"

I look past her, trying to focus on the heart I'd carved with a letter opener circumscribing our initials.

She slaps my face at the absence of my answer. "Tell me I've done the right thing!" She screams, tears erupting out of her eyes. "Tell me I did everything I could!"

Her figure is sharp, then blurry again.

"Tell me!" she demands. "Tell me you feel what I'm feeling! Tell me there was a reason he found out about us!"

"_Everything_ happens for a reason, Tocuna," is all I can say.

She crushes her fist against the trunk of the Tree, pressing her dampened cheek against our heart, carved so deeply it took years for the initials to fade.

"What I'm saying is—" I stop myself, choosing my words with great intensity, "Maybe the Count made you leave the manor for a reason. So that I would follow you, and we would finally be free…"

"I can't—" But she stops, hugging herself, her hair falling apart in the back, hanging in dark wisps around her face. "I feel like I can't trust anyone. Like I can't even trust myself,"

"This isn't a play, Tocuna. This isn't something everyone's going to see,"

"I _know_,"

"I still remember," She says, "when we lived here,"

"We were supposed to forget, Tocuna,"

"Our names are actually _carved_ into that tree,"

"We weren't supposed to remember, Tocuna—"

"I'll always remember, I swear,"

And I lift my hand, my mouth opening and closing, trying to find words, my outstretched fingers reaching for her face, but she pulls away, turning from me, arching her back slightly as she stands.

"None of that, Flo,"

She begins walking towards the front doors of the Hotel.

"What?" I'm following her, stumbling as the people inside my head add another bedroom to their mansion, pounding and pounding until there's nothing but plaster dust. "What is it?"

She casts a dark glance at my reflection in the wall of the elevator. Pressing the button for the tenth floor, she murmurs, "Never again, my darling."

……..

At this time in my life, if I were to die suddenly it would be redundant.

The child moving with constant vexation inside me, all I've ever wanted has turned out to be the opposite of something I've least expected. So I'm simply sitting here, thinking and typing, wondering how in the hell things got to be the way they are now.

Of course, after documenting the somewhat revealing conversation with Tocuna I haven't been able to write much more then that same sentence two paragraphs back.

I do believe it's more meaningful than if I were to write some useless quote by Orwell or Dickens. I've always found VFD quotations to be edifying yet completely meaningless when they're meant to allude to the current situation.

The truth is I feel like I've already died.

I'm carrying this life but I don't know what to do with it. Is this what happened to Beatrice, my dear Lemony?

I should be thanking fate itself for so much as her friendship, right? I should stop dwelling on the past and simply be content with my liberation from the Count.

But the things I desperately need I'll never have again.

"Why must you write?" She hates me. I know she must. "Why must you dwell on things that are so out of your control?"

"Why must you deny your obsessions?"

She raises her eyebrows.

Five months, five _months_ it's been like this. Back and forth until we're so out of sorts we can't think of anything else but each other.

"I received a letter today, Flo,"

"About what?"

"Olaf knows of our location,"

And the child, the aggravating miracle, the only thing I have left to live for, lies dormant at the mention of his father's name.

"What does he want?"

"He knows of your child," Her eyes search mine; flashing a new form of dislike to my already deeply broken heart.

"He's known since we left him," I begin, fearing what she'll decide to say. "I suspect he'll want his _share_ of it,"

"Don't be facetious," she laughs slightly, flicking her lighter to the tip of her cigarette. "I assure you, this story will have no happy ending,"

Motioning to my hands typing the conversation, she adds, "I suggest you include that in your little diary,"

Lemony; I assure you, this story has no happy ending.

"Why do you hate me?"

And this impossible dream, this life anachronism, finally takes an important turn.

"I _don't_ hate you, Flo," She's stepping forward, her hand lying softly on the edge of my typewriter.

"Then why are we fighting?" tears falling long and embarrassing down my face, I say, "I've loved you since I was fifteen years old. I've adored you since I was old enough to _adore_,"

Her gaze falls from the window to my face. "I feel like I can't trust you anymore,"

My father, the psychiatrist, he would be saying, _I believe we've reached a breakthrough. _

"But why, Tocuna? Why can't you trust the one person that gave up everything to be with you?"

She sits next to me. "Because I can't even trust myself,"

Taking my hand in hers, she says, "I'm so tired of being evil. I needed—"

"What?" Taking her beautiful face in my hands, she tells the truth I've been afraid to hear.

"I needed to be clear of all my sins,"

"You think our relationship is a sin?" My words are coming out in short, unusual gasps. "You thought—?"

"I thought what happened with Olaf; the things that have taken such a peculiar _turn_. I thought it was a sign…" Her voice trails off; she just stares at me.

"I can't believe—"

But she's flung herself at me, kissing me with anxious force, slipping both arms around my waist, and all I can do is kiss her back; and I finally know a piece, however trivial, of why she's been acting like she has.

"Did you really think I could go without you for so long?"

Writing this now, months later, realizing what things in my life have turned out to be so wonderful, I can't help being so anxious for everything to change viciously.

I'll tell you it was a boy. Augusten, for obvious reasons made known later in this dreaded documentation. I'll also tell you Olaf was never contacted. The letter he'd sent a time ago still lay intact in the bottom of my bag along with the rest of my manuscripts.

And he was such a perfect baby.

Tocuna would sit in bed holding him for hours, talking to me about the most unimportant of things; the most non-VFD of conversations simply because we were able to finally drop everything and _live_.

Lying with Tocuna, her long unpolluted legs brushing against me as she twisted and turned in her sleep; how she quieted when I held her, Augusten in his bed not far off grunting like babies do.

I always forced myself awake to watch my small family in their sleep, holding either one of them momentarily; watching the way my son's eyes fluttered while he dreamt, his little hands grasping my hair gently. Tocuna always wearing my pajamas, twisted in the bedclothes and holding my hand tiredly when she realized I was watching her.

Looking back in this vague form of a diary, I believe, with growing intrigue, that she was ever anxious for the security I must have provided for her and our son.

But, dear Lemony, as I've said once, perfected family harmony can be stained if you're associated with all the wrong people.

The child was nearly two years old when he was taken, supposedly recruited for enrollment in the organization's academy.

How sick I now know your parents must have felt, Lemony, when they found their three children missing with nothing but a meaningless note left in the absent space of their beds.

_The world is quiet here and always will be, as long as we are not wholly defeated._

What does it mean?

Weeks the two of us wasted, trying every code we've ever held in our power to translate the expression. Weeks spent of Tocuna crying, of my own depression deepening, of our son getting farther and farther away from us.

Time, our own precious time wrinkling our faces and possessing our sense of judgment.

Tocuna, I believe, had been finally broken.

I remember telling myself to be responsible, to be strong and Stoic like the associate I was brought up to become. Driving everywhere myself, making certain she was always in my sight, my fear grew and grew as I dissected the empty message.

Where is the world quiet? Where is there a place that no one can be defeated?

"A body of water," Tocuna gasps from her place in the passenger seat, her body collapsing when I brake to turn around.

"A body of water…" I repeat, deep in thought.

"A _beach_," Tocuna demands, her eyes widening.

"Which one?" I'm beginning to sob with fear. "There are _millions_ of beaches in the world,"

She trembles, opening and closing her mouth in deep thought. "I don't _know_! Flo, what if we're already too late?!"

"We're not too late," Reading the words on the sign of the exit, my mind is stunned with astonishment.

"Briny Beach, my love."


	6. Chapter 6

I'd remembered a lot about the shores of Briny Beach. The fact that so many ships came and left its waterfronts, the fact that so many families had visited it in hopes of enjoying their summer; when in truth their children were brutally killed by the always fatal jellyfish that inhabited its inhumane harbors.

It was common fact of the strange creatures that called the beach their home, common fact that Briny Beach was only useful to scientists.

Turning off the ignition, I stop in front of the tattered sign. The flaked paint reading _The Happiest Place on Earth_, pictures of 1950's people sunbathing, children burying a fat man in sand.

I tried desperately, Lemony. Using the best of my VFD symbolism, I tried for her. I tried for Tocuna more than I've ever tried for myself, somehow thinking that it was my responsibility for _her_ wellbeing and not my own.

"It's too dark to see anything," she complains, kicking open her car door. "And anyway, it's…"

"Too easy?" I finish for her, squinting at the skyline, looking for an abandoned boat.

"He's dead, Flo. I can feel it," She lights a cigarette, trudging through the sand in her heels.

"No he's _not_,"

"Then where is he? What's happened to him?" Choking with laughter, she says, "This was never supposed to happen. You _know_ that,"

"What was never supposed to happen, Tocuna? My love for you? Our childish dreams of being movie stars?"

"Your son was never supposed to happen, Flo,"

"_What_?" Horrified, I pull her shoulders, turning her body towards mine.

"Be still, Flo,"

"How can I when you've just said those words? You know we owe our entire relationship to that child. You know he's the reason we stayed together,"

"But I don't know what to do,"

And with that I found myself speechless, simply watching the waves come in and out, crashing against our ankles. I remember thinking; was this indeed the end of the road for our children, our jobs, our positions as associates for the other side? Why had our life so easily fallen apart at the casual usage of absinthe?

"And it's not over _yet_,"

I turn my view from the water to her face, which is staring at a figure walking towards us through the darkness.

"It's _never_ over," she says, leaving my side.

Through the night, I'm already following her, her footsteps in the sand disarming to my intense apprehension because I had actually found the courage to _trust_ her.

"You can stop looking," I hear the figure say. "My dearest _twins_,"

"_Olaf_," Tocuna says through clenched teeth.

"It's been awhile, I can tell," he says, flashing his yellow teeth in his smile. "The years haven't been good to either of you, I can say that,"

"Tell us where he is," I say, placing my hands on Tocuna's shoulders.

"Oh—I see I've interrupted lover's hill." He begins walking towards the road. "I'll be leaving—"

"Please, Olaf," Tocuna calls.

He turns, slowly, miserably, his eyes erratic and dilated. "Augusten Applewhite is no more,"

"_What_?" I scream at the two of them.

But Tocuna had collapsed in the sand, twisting herself into the fetal position, Olaf cackling ruthlessly from the edge of the beach.

"He's dead Flo. No need to ask any more questions,"

"_Why,_ Olaf?" I'm screaming at him. "Why would you kill one of the innocents?"

"It was only a matter of time before he would be recruited to join the other side, Flo,"

"What in the _hell_ are you talking about?" Plodding through the sand towards his voice in the darkness, I'm saying, "He was only a child,"

"Boys don't stay children for long," Is the only defense.

"I could have you killed, Olaf. After murdering two of your own children, I could have you sent back to hell where you belong,"

He laughs at my pathetic threat, stepping past me to Tocuna's crumpled body.

"You know good and damn well I will _always_ be alive, long after the breath leaves my…_sinful_ lips,"

He kneels, picking up Tocuna.

"What are you going to do with her?"

He throws her over his shoulder, stumbling to the road, his feet making large clouds of dust in the sand. "What I should've done years ago. Pick _her_ instead of _you_,"

"_NO!_"

It was as if everything was moving in slow motion then, Olaf pulling his gun while I ran close and closer to Tocuna, still lying unconscious from reasons so unknown at the moment. Seconds passed like hours, my hand moving towards his cheek with frightening force, ripping him with my fingernails, pulling Tocuna from his arms while he was still too shocked to fight back; tripping over piles of sand until I reached our car, feeling his blood and skin on my hands.

"It's all over, Flo," He clicks the gun.

"Are you seriously trying to frighten me?"

I've already thrown her in the passenger seat, flipping the key in the ignition, the car starting like a lawn mower. It was as if I was watching it all from a distance, like I was witnessing some revolting soap opera with hour long commercial breaks that made it nearly impossible to keep from wetting myself with anticipation.

Driving away in the darkness, I remember seeing Olaf still pointing the gun at our car, his hand visibly trembling from a distance.

But Lemony, just as I began to turn onto the freeway, I saw him lose all his artificial strength.

Cocking the gun at the endless sand, he shot it twice, his face screwing up at each crack.

What does it all mean?

Both my children presumably dead, the love of my life falling in and out of consciousness, I'd never been so lost in my life.

"What just happened, Tocuna?" Glancing across at her uneasily, she turns her head numbly towards my waiting eyes.

Her lips gray, her entire face waxy with this sickness; I realize what I've disregarded for so long. What I haven't been strong enough to believe.

"How many did you take this time?" At her silence, I slam on brakes, her neck nearly snapping with whiplash. "How many did you take, Tocuna?"

"_Why_," she rasps, "do you care??"

And she opens the car door, nearly falling onto the ground, emptying her stomach on the cold, hard pavement.

"Tocuna,"

What could I do other than help her?

"Why did you…?"

"I'm sorry, Flo," she cries, "Can you ever forgive me for the trouble I've caused in your life?"

"_Trouble_? All of this isn't your fault,"

"Yes it is. I shouldn't have contacted you that first time; I shouldn't have pulled you away from your family…"

"That's not true and you _know_ it,"

"I took away your innocence and now _my_ associate has killed your son,"

"Tocuna," My mind hurts to write this, "My darling, you _know_ I love you more than life,"

She laughs at my declaration, stumbling as she rises to her feet. "I just want to die,"

"No you don't,"

I lie to both of us, watching as she brushes my cheek with her lips.

"I can't do this anymore,"

……….

My fingers are cold from typing, my eyes blinking almost too frequently to see because of the snow.

It's been awhile since I've opened this book again, stopping at that line, trying to finish the conversation before I forget exactly what was said. Beginning a sentence and starting again and repeating the gesture, all with no success but tears and a developed hate for beaches.

But finally, Lemony, I feel emotionally ready to continue this story of my life, half burned documents and old death certificates to sort through.

That night, I believe, someone else took over Tocuna. Someone else inhabited her body, made her say those hurtful words, someone else made her steal my steady collection of that infamous green liquid, someone else made her swallow the entire bottle.

And isn't it revolting to learn that her loyalty was not to me? Isn't it miserable to think I wasn't good enough to complete her, that I couldn't convince her to be the perfect person I knew she had been in the past? The ruthless information I'd uncovered again and again about Olaf, VFD, and our pitiful families that wanted nothing more than money from our sorrow? The evil, the lies, and all of the times I've doubted myself and my friends; the things I've burnt down for a promising career and for money and cold evidence that will only kill people and others closest to them.

And while I sit here, moving from bench to bench as the snow falls gently on my bared black head; I realize I let her conquer me.

"You've been here long enough,"

I'll tell you I'm here with her.

Not as a lover, not as a friend; but a quick and business like acquaintance; accepting tasks and reading code together for the man who decided to ruin it all.

Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it was her own choice to leave me, to start this new life as an associate with a sexual code to live by. No longer will there be rushed sex in bathrooms and coat closets, breathing down each other's necks and ripping lacy underwear in anxiety.

Do you know what this means?

I couldn't trust her ever since we met at The Hotel Denouement. Ever since I was fifteen, she had no conscience of what could happen to us and all the people she cared about.

She used me for comfortable sex, and when money ran out and we had no place else to go she only went back to a life where she would be taken care of for her knowledge of simplistic literature.

"I said it's time to go, Flo,"

And she turns her beautiful long face towards mine. "It's all over, Flo. You just need to accept it,"

_But I'm undressing you with my eyes. _

"I'll never accept it,"

"You have to,"

"But I won't,"

_I want to touch you where I did so many times._

"But you _have_ to, Flo. You have no choice now. It's…" she pauses, "It's all that you have and it's all you'll ever know. There's no way out and you've just got to _understand_ that,"

"I hate you now,"

"We work together for the other side of the schism, and as far as everyone else knows we're sisters. I suggest you start acting like it,"

"I can't believe I gave you my virginity,"

"You gave your virginity to Olaf because your parents made you, Flo,"

"I can't believe I gave up my family for you,"

"It will never work, Flo. We'll only get killed,"

"If that was love you wouldn't care about getting killed. You'd be smart enough to take care of yourself and not have to sleep with a fucking weapon under your bed because you don't know who's going to walk in your room while you're sleeping. You'd be smart enough to raise a child and shield him from harm and not offer yourself up to a man whose powers are beyond your control. If that was love you'd—"

"Stop," she whispers through clenched teeth. "Just stop,"

She turns, taking my bag that was lying against the bench and walks to the car.

I follow reluctantly, watching her throw my bag in the back seat. And the car starts like a lawn mower, the passenger seat cold and dirty under my weight as she drives halfway drunk.

And I'm taking painkillers for the third time today, noting the book on the dashboard full of poetry and notes with corresponding code written in the sidelines…my eighteen year old handwriting scrawled and seemingly ancient because I've become so old.

So what exactly do you want for an ending, Lemony?

A fourteenth chapter, something you can use to ease your readers' pain from the truth? Or do you want me to continue only to distinguish against the lies?

"Where do we go from here?"

My question hangs in the sound of the engine, and I'm watching her head slowly fall from her view of the road to my face.

"We face the future, Flo."

"Do you remember your name?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Before you joined, you had a birth name. Do you remember it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about,"

"Yes you do,"

"No,"

"Yes,"

She glares at me angrily, pulling over onto the curb.

"Lily. Lily; okay?! Lily,"

"Thank you."

"Fuck off," she yells, continuing to drive to Olaf's mansion.

I'll tell you that there is so fourteenth chapter.

There is no Part Seven, no Part Eight, nothing else after this.

I've written what's happened, and I won't write anything more.

But when the future fails us, we have the past to rely on. The young, unknowing past when events were perfect and planned is what's left for us to feed off of when there's nothing left.

Her name was Lilly.

My name was August.

And we loved with a love that could withstand pain and lies until it was wounded with the stains of past and future; a love that was capable of change and separation that lived and thrived for years.

It was a love that dominated youth.

And so, Mr. Snicket, what do you say to getting this published?

It's more to the public's interest than the story of three pathetic teenagers. But then again, I could be wrong. I was, after all, wrong about the brevity of love.

And the snow falls outside.

How will I end the story of my life?

How will I leave you with something meaningful, some sort of gift for you after hanging you on the plot of my melodramas?

How far will I go for the truth?? About what love actually is, about why I was put in this terrible world to live such a terrible life??

I'll leave you with a list of events; simply because I'm crying too hard to write using my talents.

Tocuna was convicted for arson and possible homicide after she was caught burning down yet another hotel in the downtown area. Olaf, with my help, broke her out of jail shortly after she was proven guilty. Together the three of us put together a plan to kill the parents of Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire, Olaf wanting to recruit the oldest child into our Troupe because of her 'pretty face'. We decided to burn all information about VFD, the schism, and your family file in order to clear our names from any possible records. But our Troupe, however, is the only group of people that knows of my true identity. We killed important people, Lemony. Innocent people. People that had no reason to give their lives simply because of Olaf's love of money.

And Tocuna, my love for so long it pains me to tell you a number, hasn't said two words to me other than "These matches are wet,"

As I said, there is no fourteenth chapter.

There is no Part Seven.

There is no easing of your pain from this horrible truth that I've forced you to read.

This is the end of the road, and now you know as much as I do.

It is only how you use this knowledge that will make a difference in the very near future. Use my miserable experiences for your advantage, Lemony. Take my advice and prevent yourself from a world of pain and betrayal.

Fight the already chosen fate for you, Lemony. Writing your memories can only fulfill your passion so far.

I believe you know what I'm talking about.


End file.
